band what is still left.'

'Hear me,' pursued Vetranio, in low, gloomy tones. 'I stood alone in
my doomed palace; the friends whom I had tempted to their destruction
lay lifeless around me; the torch was in my hand that was to light our
funeral pile, to set us free from the loathsome world! I approached
triumphantly to kindle the annihilating flames, when she stood before
me--she, whom I had sought as lost and mourned as dead! A strong hand
seemed to wrench the torch from me; it dropped to the ground! She
departed again; but I was powerless to take it up; her look was still
before me; her face, her figure, she herself, appeared ever watching
between the torch and me!'

'Lower!--speak lower!' interrupted the physician, looking on the
senator's agitated features with unconcealed astonishment and pity.
'You retard your own recovery,--you disturb the girl's repose by
discourse such as this.'

'The officers of the senate,' continued Vetranio, sadly resuming his
gentler tones, 'when they entered the palace, found me still standing
on the place where we had met! Days passed on again; I stood looking
out upon the street, and thought of my companions whom I had lured to
their death, and of my oath to partake their fate, which I had never
fulfilled. I would have driven my dagger to my heart; but her face was
yet before me, my hands were bound! In that hour I saw her for the
second time; saw her carried past me--wounded, assassinated! She had
saved me once; she had saved me twice! I knew that now the chance was
offered me, after having wrought her ill, to work her good; after
failing to discover her when she was lost, to succeed in saving her
when she was dying; after having survived the deaths of my friends at
my own table, to survive to see life restored under my influence, as
well as destroyed! These were my thoughts; these are my thoughts
still--thoughts felt only since I saw her! Do you know now why I
believe that her soul contains the fate of mine? Do you see me,
weakened, shattered, old before my time; my friends lost, my fresh
feelings of youth gone for ever; and can you not now comprehend that
her life is my life?--that if she dies, the one good purpose of my
existence is blighted?--that I lose all I have henceforth to live
for?--all, all!'

As he pronounced the concluding words, the girl's eyes half unclosed,
and turned languidly towards her father. She made an effort to lift
her hand caressingly from